ABC's landmark show ended months ago, but with the final season now out on DVD, Losties have been able to renew their obsession. But for some folks, plunking down $40 for the season (or about $50 if you're into Blu-ray) just doesn't do it. They want to get closer to the show—and spend more. Lots more.

Some Lost fanatics spent significant time and money this past weekend buying scads of old television props, scripts and assorted flotsam from the Lost auction, conducted by the auction house Profiles in History. More than a thousand bits of memorabilia were sold, including the Dharma van (pictured) for $47,500 (imagine pulling up to soccer practice in that), to Faraday's Journal for $27,500,  to the Lost finale script—signed by show masterminds Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse—for $7,500. The outfit Jack wore during his tortured last moments of life on the island fetched $10,000—not too shabby, considering most bloodstained, tattered T's wouldn't fetch 10 cents at a thrift store.

Some other doo-dads were less expensive … but not by much. Thought Claire's creepy squirrel baby was kinda cute? You could've bought it for your own bundle of joy for a mere $2,750. Want an official Dharma lab coat? One was purchased for $2,500. Lost your copy of Watership Down? Sawyer's fetched a paltry $3,300—quite a bit for a paperback, it's true, but you can't put a price on good literature.

"I couldn't be more thrilled to be the proud owner of Rousseau's original music box from the flashbacks," one Lost buyer, known only as Jenny K., told USA Today. "I know to those who don't watch Lost it may seem a lot to pay $1,800 for a music box, but to me it is worth every penny. When I am old and gray in a nursing home one day, just put in a Lost tape, open my music box and see me smile."

In all this frenzy stirred by Lost memorabilia, one might detect a touch of irony: One of the lessons passengers of Oceanic flight 815 might've taken from the island was that relationships bring happiness—not all the other stuff we tend to surround ourselves with.

But that said, I get it. I'm a "stuff" person, too. I don't have the cash to buy mementos from Lost, but I've got my share of useless gunk I'm strangely happy to have. I own a football signed by a couple of famous Denver Broncos. I have some Colorado Rockies rookie cards. I've got a belt buckle that says "Media Champ"—a holdover from my days covering professional rodeo. And I've got lots of personal things, too—far more "valuable" to me, in many respects: old college papers, friendship bracelets made by some campers when I was a counselor, Hot Wheels cars I used to race with my best friend. They're relics of earlier days. As such, they're important to me—even if they'd not fetch much at auction.

I don't like throwing stuff away. The stuff in itself isn't all that important—but it does help remind me what is.

Ever since we met in 2003, Discovery Channel's end-of-summer celebration of all things shark has been must-see TV for us. Just as Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom once captivated our imaginations as kids, so this cable channel's annual exposé of the oceans' most fearsome finned predators has become something that we look forward to every August.

But the new content this year has started to feel a bit long in the tooth. This year, to put it bluntly, it feels like Discovery Channel has jumped the shark. Literally.

Let me give you two examples.

Back in 2000, a group of folks traveled to Seal Island off the coast of South Africa to film great white sharks breaching the water—completely—as they attacked seals. It was jaw-dropping (or, jaw-thrusting, perhaps I should say) footage, as 5,000 pound, 20-foot-long fish exploded from the water over and over again. I'd never seen anything like it.

This year, some folks producing a sequel of sorts called Ultimate Air Jaws returned to the area to film again. This time, though, it wasn't enough just to get footage of great whites' spectacular aerial hunting maneuvers. Upping the dramatic ante considerably, they put a guy with a camera on a little raft towing a fake seal a mere 10 feet behind him … and waited for the sharks to do their thing.

They did, of course. The sharks jumped and jumped and jumped … practically close enough for the photographer to touch them. The footage? Even more incredible than before. But more so than ever, I found myself thinking, This dude could easily become a shark sandwich if things go wrong.

The folks at Discovery know that, of course. And it speaks to the fact that they have to keep coming up with ever-more-extreme encounters with sharks to keep luring visitors after 23 years of Shark Week.

Another new program this year featured a guy talking about how to survive certain kinds of shark attacks … basically by recreating those perilous situations. One of them involved luring a shark into a cage with him and closing the door! Again, I thought, Oh, please, now Discovery is actually harassing sharks (instead of just feeding them chum on camera) in the name of drawing an audience.

In both examples, the ethos of extreme reality TV seems to be saturating Shark Week to the point that it no longer feels like engaging educational television (and, to be honest, maybe it ceased to be that a long time ago and I'm just figuring it out). Now, it seems like Discovery Channel is competing with all the other death-defying, high-risk reality TV out there.

And for me, at least, that's made Shark Week a bit less appealing and a bit more like so many other shows out there that exploit humans, animals or both in the name of ratings.

I grew up at the Jersey Shore. So in defense of the folks back home, let me clarify that we aren't all like the knuckleheads on MTV's reality show

I'm not bitter about the misconception that New Jerseyans are all six degrees of separation from Tony Soprano. I realize that people who've never visited our fine state have no reason not to believe the stereotypes they see and hear in entertainment. Frankly, I've been guilty of media-fed misnomers myself, like when I spoke in Anchorage, Ala., a few years back and expected a moose to walk down the street, Northern Exposure-style. So I'm pretty understanding. But this Snooki business makes me crazy.

You see, Jersey Shore (which, ironically, kicks off this season in Miami, though last year it took place in New Jersey's Seaside Heights, known for its club scene) is considered a "reality" program. Therefore, a lot of young people tuning in to watch J-WOWW, The Situation and their hard-partying housemates will walk away even more confused about the birthplace of electricity, Buzz Aldrin and Meryl Streep. What will define New Jersey to this generation? Will it be silver queen corn and the stables of Colts Neck, or a viral video clip of Snooki getting punched in the face by some guy in a bar?

An article in The New Yorker said, "Jersey Shore makes us feel as though we were anthropologists secretly observing a new tribe through a break in the trees." Likewise, a review in Entertainment Weekly noted "Jersey Shore is like The Real World, but filled with super-skanky folks of Italian descent who want nothing more than to tan, drink and hook up."

After last season's series premiere, Daniel Cappello, executive director of the Jersey Shore Convention and Visitors Bureau, stated, "MTV is providing a one-dimensional, dramatized version of a very small group of visitors' summer experiences in one Jersey Shore town. … We welcome visitors to come here to enjoy a cultural diversity that in no way reflects what is seen on MTV."

Me too. I spent my first 25 years "down the shore" before life moved me west. I still visit family there whenever I can, and I always look forward to smelling the sea air and enjoying a real slice of pizza. For anyone tempted to take Mr. Cappello up on his offer, forget about Seaside Heights. Just up the road lies Point Pleasant Beach with its sandy coastline, fun boardwalk, kiddie rides, aquarium and a killer Italian ice joint down by the inlet. That's where families go. Including mine.

Oh, it was bad. Really bad.

Contestants stand near a conveyor belt that holds various prizes (refrigerators, cars, dining room sets, etc.). They answer questions to win the items and cash. If they don't answer in time, the prizes fall off the moving belt and down a 10-story building, crashing to smithereens below. (It's said the prizes are replicas, but you'd think they'd still be expensive to create!)

This show was so lousy, in fact, I got mad and wondered if it and other inane and wasteful programs are a reason why other countries sometimes dislike us.

The Hollywood Reporter's Barry Garron reviewed Downfall so well that I'll quote him, since one cannot improve on perfection:

Considering the fact Downfall has a TV-PG rating and includes questions that few under the age of 20 could answer, ABC is obviously not gearing it toward kids. And that makes me wonder what the network must think of American adults. The network has spent millions of dollars on a show that drops things off a building just to watch them go boom. ABC calls the program "a unique, high-stakes and adrenaline-pumping game show." I would actually agree with that "adrenaline-pumping" part—because my blood did start to simmer.

They found the biggest drop in empathy occurred after the year 2000, and they have several theories for this—all of which involve entertainment media that have surged in popularity in the last 10 years.

Video games. Americans are exposed to at least three times the amount of media they were 30 years ago, a number that's influenced by the popularity of video games. Today's college students grew up with such games, and more and more research suggests that exposure to violent games can numb players to other people's pain.

Social media. Co-researcher Edward O'Brien says, "The ease of having 'friends' online might make people more likely to just tune out when they don't feel like responding to others' problems, a behavior that could carry offline."

Reality TV. O'Brien also believes that the "hypercompetitive atmosphere and inflated expectations of success, borne of celebrity 'reality shows,'" creates an environment that inhibits people from listening when others need support. 

Newsweek writer Barbie Nadeau has her own take on empathy's gradual demise. Writing about Joran van der Sloot, Casey Anthony and Amanda Knox, all twentysomethings who were recently accused or convicted of murder, Nadeau says:

Airtight cause-and-effect relationships between media and behavior are difficult to prove. But research like this increasingly seems to indicate a measurable, definable connection: Increased media consumption blunts our ability to identify with the painful things other people suffer.

I own three perfectly good smoke detectors, but I wanted to buy another one during the Lost finale.

That's how good Target's marketing was. The finale itself? Meh (in my opinion …). But the Target advertisements? Fabulous! And I'm not the only one who thought so.

The Nielsen Company says First Alert's "smoke monster" ad had a likeability rating almost four times higher than ads shown during other shows in the time slot. What's more impressive, data shows that Lost viewers recall ads shown during any of the final Lost episodes at least 27% better than those shown during other primetime programs. The 13 million folks who watched the finale could recall ads 90% better than their non-Lostie friends who were watching something else.

Translated into English that means: If you saw something advertised on Lost, you were more likely to a) like it, and b) remember it. Which means, of course, you're also more likely to buy it.

My question is, why? Because we don't realize our hankering for barbequed pork until a boar happens to run by onscreen and we realize we need BBQ sauce? Or (and this seems more likely) do we like stuff more if it's associated with other stuff we already like?

If the latter is true of mere television advertisements, then what else is it true of? Friendships? Strangers? Churches? Virtually everything?

Ah, the questions raised by marketing.

A few minutes ago, I finished writing an update to our published TV review of 24, largely because this week's episode pushed the torture quotient so far as to be reprehensible. How in the world, even in 2010, can this stuff be on TV? I wondered as I watched series hero Jack Bauer cut, hit, burn and quite literally gut his chained adversary.

But it wasn't until I started doing a little Internet research to try to establish exactly what kind of acidic liquid Jack sprays onto the guy's open wounds that I came to fully realize just how damaging and dangerous this kind of open celebration of graphic violence is in our culture. We can discuss for decades all the ideas behind why Jack tortures the folks he captures, whether he should, whether it's effective, etc. We can also acknowledge that the producers of the show seem to want us to be repulsed by what Jack's doing. But the reality is that lots and lots of fans aren't grappling with sociopolitical concepts or caring a whit about "intent" while Jack's on the warpath. They're just basking in the primal passion of it all.

"I loved this episode," wrote a self-described Bauer Fanatic in response to a post on CNN's Marquee Blog. "Plyers, knife, acid & a blow torch. Vintage Jack Bauer torture. The last 10 minutes were by far the best of the entire season. But let's not exclude the 10 minutes prior to that. The shootout in the mall was classic. It took about 2 hours for my heart rate to calm down."

"WOW….. what an episode," wrote Starlett, "i was screaming at the television i couldn't believe my eyes. As sad as i am to see it end this is the perfect time to go with a bang bang bang…."

Ab wrote, "HE GUTTED THE ASSASSIN! That's all I got to say. Long live JACK the DARK LORD OF RAGE."

Megan concludes, "Jack can do no wrong. Whatever choices he makes, I fully support- including brutally torturing and killing his enemies."

The list of screaming praises for Jack's viciousness goes on and on—28 pages worth if you were to print them out. That's almost exactly how long my list of reasons is for why I'm glad 24 is ending.

Glee: The Music, The Power of Madonna snagged the top spot on the chart. The seven-song offering featured the cast of Fox's show Glee(you can find our review of its Madonna-themed episode here) performing some of Madonna's biggest hits, mostly from the '80s and '90s: "Borderline," "Like a Virgin," "Like a Prayer," "Express Yourself" and "Vogue." Only two hits were more recent: ""What It Feels Like for a Girl" and "4 Minutes." (iTunes purchasers also got "Burning Up").

And then there was the soundtrack to Iron Man 2, which features 15 anthems from Aussie rockers AC/DC spanning the band's 37-year career. It came in at No. 4.

What are we to make of these soundtracks' strong performances?

On the most basic level, I think it speaks to the enduring popularity of their contributors. Even after 30 or so years (a few more for AC/DC, a few less for Madonna), people still love these artists' music. Longtime fans are willing to pony up for yet another version of songs they already own, while younger fans may be buying their music for the first time.

Even more significantly, though, I think these albums' strong sales speaks to the increasing symbiosis between all aspects of the entertainment world. Movies and television need artists' music. And musicians need TV and movies to help them stay relevant in a music world that's increasingly fragmented.

It wasn't that long ago that Madonna and AC/DC might have been branded sell-outs for licensing their music to be used in such a way. Now they're just savvy marketers doing what they must to survive.

The same dynamic holds true for the people tasked with assembling musical talent for their properties. Why should a movie or television producer take a chance on some unknown indie band when artists the caliber of AC/DC and Madonna are more than willing to make their music available?

From the entertainment industry perspective, everybody wins. Whether fans of Glee and Iron Man are well served by that synergy is another question altogether.

Nevertheless, every time a song or album helps a TV show or a movie—and vice versa—it will likely reinforce this accelerating trend in the entertainment world.